Vaccine companies to share their formulas as Covid cases spike

By: Mohammad Azmi Ahmad Hamaydeh

In October 2020, a campaign launched in India and South Africa underlining the importance of every country holding the right to make its own vaccine during a pandemic.

The campaign aimed to temporarily waive the intellectual property protection on coronavirus vaccines.

This was done to help in the fight against covid-19 and so that supply levels for the vaccination can meet the demand.

Initially, this campaign was met with very little support and with little to no international coverage.

China, Russia, and the United States had initially shared that their support for the waiver was limited, instead, the high-income countries announced that they would continue supplying their own vaccines around the globe and to low-income nations.

After seven months of protests and deliberation there seems to be more support including the United States under the Biden administration. This significant shift cannot be undermined as the country holds the largest market for pharmaceuticals.

Currently, the campaign is backed by hundreds of countries, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Health Organization.

The core problem was that vaccine manufacturing and distribution was heavily focused on high to middle income countries.

Pharmaceutical companies in these countries, who are main patent holders, have been selling the vaccine to their own governments and other high-income governments.

This unfortunately was not addressed, but rather supported by governments with their own agenda for its benefit of only its own people.

Source: Livemint

The current turn of events gives low-income countries a glimmer of hope.

The support has slowly given rise to international media coverage and as more people have become aware of this problem, more countries around the world have taken their support to action.

The Biden administration announced on 4 May that it was working with the World Trade Organization in order to suspend intellectual property rights in regard to the Covid 19 vaccination, whilst the EU has made promises and taken measures to share their vaccine supply to low income governments around the world.